It seems the search for life is big business.
Billions of dollars have been spent over the years in sending probes to Mars, just to answer the question of whether there has ever been life there. Of course there are conspiracy theorists who think that the US government has already found the answer and are just keeping quiet about it.
Closer to home, the search for life is just as big a deal. The Amazon best-seller list is full of self-help guides to finding life, meaning, and purpose. If we’re honest, there’s a lot of Christian books which tap into the same market and hold much of the same advice. You can search the web and find a myriad of different sites aimed at helping you finding your life purpose, find a life coach, or discover how to live life to the full.
There must be more
The truth is that there are many things you can do in life to experience more enjoyment, more energy, more satisfaction. Unfortunately, most of these things are temporary and do not last. What starts off as a means to greater fulfillment easily becomes yet another item on the list of ‘things to be done if I’m going to have any joy at all’. Ultimately, it turns out that the promise of life is greater than the experience of life. All the while there is the hope that true life, and true fulfillment, is just around the corner. The reality is that the emptiness and dis-satisfaction inside grows.
So where does life come from
My own experience is that true life doesn’t come from anything you do. True life comes from growing in relationship with the one who is called ‘the giver of life’. If you ask the simple question ‘Why did Jesus come’ you can probably come up with many different good (and biblical) answers. The one I like is the reason Jesus himself gave:
“I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” – John 10:10
I’ve been finding this in recent times: The less I worry about what I need to do, and the more I get on with the ‘business’ of knowing God, the more alive I feel. Funnily enough that’s what the Bible promises too.
For whoever finds me finds life, and receives favour from the LORD – Proverbs 8:35
[...] I have been a Christian for 25 years. Over that time I have come to believe – through personal experience and through faith in God’s word – that true life and true fulfillment are only found through knowing God. Check out an earlier post on ‘Finding Life’ here. [...]